ARTICLES ABOUT ERIC LEFKOFSKY BY DATE - PAGE 2

It requires emotional detachment yet total passion. It might involve killing a business in order to save it. It's by turns agonizing, rewarding, humbling and empowering. And everyone who's done it seems to have a slightly different idea of what it is. It's the pivot. An essential concept in the startup world, pivoting means doing something differently, often under time constraints as cash and investor patience dwindle. A pivot could involve changing a product to reach the same target market, going after a different market with the same product or preserving a small piece of existing technology to form an entirely different business.

Groupon co-founder and former Chief Executive Andrew Mason is heading to San Francisco to work with entrepreneurs and launch a new company. The former CEO announced on his personal blog that he's "accumulated a backlog of ideas over the last several years" and will be turning his favorite one into a company this fall. He will also be joining startup accelerator program Y Combinator as a part-time partner, advising participants one day a week. Mason is one of five part-time partners joining Y Combinator, the incubator announced on Thursday.

Groupon Inc. claimed Wednesday a "new chapter" in its history, seeking to fundamentally shift the way the company sells its deals to customers and offering more financial disclosures. It was the first quarter that the Chicago-based daily deals company reported earnings since the departure of co-founder and former Chief Executive Andrew Mason, who was fired at the end of February. He was replaced by two board members, Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonsis, who are running Groupon while a search committee hunts for a long-term replacement for Mason.

Chicago-based venture capital firm Lightbank, which this year expanded its purview to consumer health care, saw its first portfolio company in the space launch a product to help women conceive. Lightbank, founded by Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, who were early investors and co-founders of Groupon, has backed a number of consumer technology startups in areas such as e-commerce and education. Earlier this year, it was one of several investors that put $1.4 million into Ovuline, a Cambridge, Mass., startup whose Web and mobile applications predict when women are most fertile and guide them through pregnancy.

Daily deals provider Groupon Inc. significantly narrowed its net loss in the first quarter, with the company's North American business offsetting continued weak revenues in its overseas markets. The company reported a net loss of $4 million, or 1 cent a share for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $11.7 million, or 2 cents a share, for the same period last year. The earnings report sent Groupon's stock up more than 11 percent in after-hours trading. Revenue rose 7.5 percent to $601.4 million in the first quarter from $559.3 million a year earlier.

(Reuters) - Groupon Inc's quarterly revenue rose a faster-than-expected 7.5 percent after the company's North American daily deals business turned in a strong performance, stirring hopes that the struggling company may have begun to turn things around. Shares in the company, one of the most feted Internet market debutantes of 2011 before daily deals mania cooled, climbed almost 10 percent in after-hours trade. They have gained about 40 percent since the February ouster of co-founder and former CEO Andrew Mason, who was criticized for lacking the experience to run an increasingly global, public company.

The two Groupon board members named co-chief executives to replace Andrew Mason will receive the same compensation in their expanded roles at the Chicago-based daily deals company, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonsis stepped up to the helm at Groupon nearly three weeks ago, when Mason was ousted. The Tuesday filing said "their compensation (as CEOs) will match the amount that they would have received ... if they had continued to serve solely as directors.

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO, March 3 (Reuters) - Groupon Inc under a new chief executive should look a lot trimmer with a sharply reduced international arm, a more focused business - and minus its large and once internally celebrated editorial staff, analysts and investors say. The exit of co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason - fired after another disappointing set of quarterly results slashed Groupon's market value by a quarter -...

Groupon has fired its chief executive and the money-losing company faces several challenges, but Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky is undeterred. The Chicago-based e-commerce site, he said, is "inches away from greatness. " Lefkofsky, Groupon's co-founder and largest shareholder, speaking to the Tribune in his first public comments since Thursday's ouster of Andrew Mason, declined to discuss specific reasons for replacing Mason, though he pointed out at least one recent management error.